


The Cauldron

by CyclonicJet



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 21:13:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyclonicJet/pseuds/CyclonicJet
Summary: A recounting of Aerea Targaryens lost days.





	The Cauldron

A dull red glow pulsed beneath the blackened stone. It wove its way through the walls in great seams, like veins of gold turned to flame. The heat was stifling and and the rock fiery to the touch. A more unwelcoming place could have scare been imagined.

It was in this forsaken place that Aerea Targaryen found herself treading through ancient barren halls. In all her life she had never felt quite so small, or so scared as she was now. Not that she could never admit that to herself. Her pride was far too egregious to allow for such. She was the blood of the dragon. Nothing would deter her. Yet even still, the smoking ruins of the crumbling cities far above paled utterly in their ability to instil such unease and disquiet as the labyrinth of darkened hallways she now trekked.

She was not here by choice. When she had taken Balerion he had immediately taken command, ignoring all her pleads and commands. He was the master in their relationship, of that she was certain. But why Balerion had delivered her here she could not say. She knew this place had once been his home. But that had been a long time ago, the fact the ancient beast still remembered this place at all was a marvel.  All she knew for certain was that that he had flown over the smoking ruins of Valyria. Flown deep into the heart of the peninsula, where likely no man or woman had set foot since the doom itself. 

When at last he had landed it had been well away from the drowned cities, instead choosing to settle down upon the still ash ridden plains, close to the base of what had once been one of the fourteen flames. Even by the measure of the rest of the peninsula, the place had been especially desolate. Devoid of life of any kind, a sickly toxic fog choked the air. So dense was it that nothing more then half again the length of Balerion could be seen in the gloom. But there had been one thing of interest upon the scorched plain, a singular tower rising out of the ashes. Immense and twisted, it stood silhouetted and shadowed before her by the clouds of ash and smoke. It had seemingly been carved into the lower escarpments of the volcano itself.

A harrowing sight to behold in its visage she had wanted nothing more then to depart immediately, but Balrion had refused to budge. Nothing she did could shift the dragon. It almost felt like he wanted her to enter the tower and uncover whatever mysteries lay inside. As to why, what for, and to what end, she could not say. But she could sense the only way she was going to get him to move once more was to enter and learn the secrets that lay within.

The tower itself had been enormous. Balerion himself could have easily passed inside with her, though he had clearly refused to. Rather then rising up, the tower was little more than a front, a housing for a rotunda like staircase that delved deep into the earth. As she had stood upon the precipice of the first step, a harsh and callous wind had blown up from the depths below. Hot and ominous in its nature, it had felt like the breath of a dragon deep in slumber.  ‘I am the blood of the dragon!’ she had told herself. Nothing would cow her. So, swallowing her hesitation and fear, she had taken the plunge and descended the stairs into the depths below. 

* * *

 

As she had descended, an oppressive feeling had fallen upon her as she dove ever deeper downward.  Her footsteps echoed loudly around the long forgotten halls and passages. The heat exuding out of the walls only ever climbed higher and higher, offering no reprieve or respite as she journeyed ever deeper. A dreadful presence haunted her every step, a feeling that something was peering silently at her from the shadows. It felt like something foul had once festered here. Perhaps something still did, lurking just out of sight in the deep gloom. The mere thought sent a shiver down her spine. A smell like that of burnt flesh pervaded every room and every corridor. Every room she found was cavernous, large enough for multiple dragons as large as Balerion himself to have walked easily a pace beside her.

But beyond the foulness and the darkness, the heat and the feeling of despair, and the general sense of unease that pervaded the place, lay something else. Something she had only ever felt riding upon the back of the black dread. It was the unmistakable touch and feel of magic. She brought herself to a halt before one of the many monstrous doorways. “There is magic here.” she whispered to herself as she slid a finger down the thickened frame of the door.

“Deep and powerful magic.” a voice whispered back into her ear. She yelped and turned in panic, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. ‘Is there someone else here?’ she thought to herself. No. There couldn’t be. This was Valyria. No one travelled here. She had to be alone. “Who’s there!?” she yelled into the abyss regardless. She had to be sure she wasn’t mad.  Only silence greeted her. It was only after a moment, and she was sure no response was coming, did she release a breath she had not known she had held. She turned back around to continue her venture and her heart virtually stopped. A masked women stood on the threshold of the doorway before her.

* * *

 

“Greetings Aerea Targaryen.” she whispered. “It is a pleasure to at last make your acquaintance.”

 Aerea took a sharp breath and reflexively stumbled back five whole steps. A desperate struggle exploded within her, where she contended with the fear welling in her heart and strove to prevent it overcoming her completely. She did not entirely succeed in this endeavour. “Who are you!?” she screamed in fright and anger. “How do you know my name!? Why are you here!?”

“Who am I?” the masked woman replied wistfully. “No one you need trouble yourself over, child. I am but a humble guide.”

“A guide?” she asked hesitantly. The terror in her heart remained boiling just below the surface, a barely held lid slammed down upon it. No one was supposed to be here. She wasn’t even supposed to be here. How was this place not abandoned!?

“Indeed.” she whispered with ethereal grace. “I offer those who explore the deep secrets of this world guidance through the darkness, though many and more who tread such paths are still lost along the way.”  Aerea took another step backward. This was wrong. She needed to leave immediately.  “I offer you no harm Aerea Targaryen.” the woman continued, seemingly aware of Aerea's intentions to flee. “I serve only to prevent those who wander from becoming lost in the many great labyrinths that lay buried all over this world.”

The longer Aerea listened to her, the more she wanted to hear. Her words were smooth as silk and as sweet as honey. Her voice carried like a cool summers day breeze, caressing and soft like a lovers kiss. It sounded as if there could be nothing wrong in the world when she spoke. Despite herself Aerea felt herself being put at ease by the woman, much to the distress of the small voice yelling in the back of her head.

“But there are others beyond myself here child." the woman said. "Those who may not share my inclinations towards non-violence. Those who might otherwise bring you to harm.”

“Others!?” she asked in a half choke, her sense of caution returning in a rush. There were other down here!?

“Indeed." she said gently. "But mayhaps not as you may be thinking of. They are not like you, nor are they like I. They are different, apart from the natural order shall we say. But I have walked amongst them. You need only leave them in peace, and they are as like to return such in kind.” 

Aerea found a calm falling on her again. The masked woman seemed almost motherly in her attendance, offering a warmth her own mother never had. She yearned for to revel in it.  “Now.” the masked women pressed. “Follow me, and I will show you that which you have travelled so far for.”

“And what is that?” she asked with slight hesitation.

The women merely turned and walked on through the door. “Truth.” she answered simply as she swept swiftly away into the labyrinth of tunnels beyond. Every instinct in her head told her to run, but Aerea found herself instead drawn forward. A siren song had been sung and she was now ensnared by its lullaby. Answers lay ahead. To what she did not know, all she did know was that she now wanted to know more than anything else in the world what they were.

* * *

As she pressed ever onward a wariness again returned to her in the absence of her guides fragrant voice. But her feet still appeared firmly under the masked woman's spell, seemingly possessed of their own will, dragging her along ever deeper into the shadows. Her guide, such as she knew her, walked a clear step ahead of her, but kept such a pace as to not leave Aerea behind. Aerea also noted, with some perturbant, that her guide had suddenly fallen deathly silent. Even the sound of her footfall was absent. It unnerved her in some primal way she could not quite describe.

She had to break the silence. She had to hears something then the tread of her own feet and the beating of her heart. She needed it as much too help bolster her courage as to hear the woman's wondrous voice again. “Where are we?” she asked.

“A tomb.” a voice whispered in her ear. Startled, she turned her head to find the source of the sound, but found nothing behind her but shadows. “A prison.” another voice whispered off to her side. She again turned her head sharply to find nothing but gloomy darkness curtained before her. “A crypt and a graveyard.” her guide whispered back to her.

“A graveyard?” she asked, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow looking for the unseen voice in the gloom around her.

“Quite so.” her guide replied dreamily. “An accursed place if ever there was one. A place most mortal men feared to tread, even before the doom rent the lands above into the twisted ruins they are now. The Freehold had long since shunned this place, even at the apex of its glory. A place so truly evil that even the Doom could not wash it away, like it did so much the rest of the Valyria.”

“Far from the sights of gods.” the unseen voice whispered to her again. She again turned to find its owner, but found nothing. “And as close to the devils and hell's below as could be made.” another voice whispered. Her heart began to race once more. Someone was playing with her. Toying with her. ‘I am the blood the dragon.’ she thought loudly to herself. She repeated it and repeated it again and again, until at last the fear once again subsided.

“Wha-" she stammered. "What happened here?” She desired deeply to wrap herself with the comfort the words of the masked woman provided. To bask and be soothed by them. to shield her from the menace all around.

“Fire...” whispered one voice from the shadows. “...and blood.” whispered the other. With a force of will she kept her eyes locked onto the masked women ahead. Whoever was lurking out of her sight would clearly not be seen unless they wished too. so she would not play their game and entertain them by looking for them.

“When Valyria dawned, it did not so easily.” her guide stated. “Dragons are fierce and wild creatures, not easily tamed. Many and more of them resisted such attempts to bond with them. Many a sheep herder would die for their own vanity.  So in time the Valyrians constructed such a place where they could resolve the issue. A place where where they could inter dragons far beneath the earth. Far from the sun and the sky, and the light and joy of the world. Here the dragons were hoarded and bound.”

"To what end?” Aerea asked beside herself. Her fear was draining away completely now. In it's a place an insatiable thirst for knowledge had been borne forth. Where from she did not know, nor did she care. All she wanted was answers. She was utterly entranced. All she desired was to have the masked woman teach her more. Even her surrounding were forgotten to her, such was her enthralment by the mysterious woman.

 The woman did not answer her, continuing on instead in stony silence. Then she abruptly halted and turned to face her. “We have arrived.” she stated.

* * *

 

Aerea blinked herself out of her trance and looked around herself. They were in a high vaulted room, perfectly circular with eight identical caverns such as they had just traversed converging upon it. It was vast and spacious, large enough for many a dragon to have taken too wing and soared around the gargantuan empty space above. At its centre sat a raised circular dais, borne on top of multiple levels. 

A thrum resounded within her, as if someone had just shaken the ground below. Her bones quivered and her blood boiled. Something in this room was reacting to her, or her to it. A resonating force such as that of a bell chime. She knew not what it was. But a certain sense of familiarity dawned upon her, like she somehow knew this place. Little more then a half recalled, distant memory of a long ago dream. But still the feeling persisted.

“Here lies the bleeding heart of Valyria.” the masked woman announced to her. “Where the pact was forged and the pawns of fire risen up.”  Aerea felt a sudden shiver run down her spine. The thrum within her increased. She could feel her bones rattling inside her, as they quavered with anticipation. “What-What is happening to me!” she exclaimed. A sudden convulsion wracked her, and she took a half step forward, as if some unseen entity had seized her and was attempting to drag her towards the centre of the room.

“You must ascend the dais.” her guide replied, seemingly oblivious to her plight.

“What will I find up there!?” she yelped as her body again felt like it was being yanked forwards.

“The truth you seek child.” she replied. “But you must go alone. I cannot accompany you now. For only the blood of the dragon may ascend to the crown.”

“Walk!” a voice whispered loudly in her ear. “Move” urged another. “Climb!” they commanded in chorus. She felt a thin film of tears slide down her cheek as her legs began moving forward of their own accord. As h er foot reached the first level of the dais the tremors within her intensified yet again. Yet, disregarding the trembling wracking her, her feet carried her ever higher. Up and up they took her, ascending each layer, each in turn imparting a renewed set of tremors, each worse then the last. It transcended her body now. Her mind, her very soul was responding to it, quivering in fear, or in anticipation. she couldn't be sure which.

When at last she stepped upon the crown the terrible tremors fled her instantly, leaving her nauseous in their wake. She fell to her knees and drew deep sharp breaths, every muscle of her body was laced with pain. A she regained some measure of herself Aerea's gaze lingered up to see what lay before her. A sigil she did not recognise lay carved deep into the stone floor of the dais. Ancient and strange symbols adorned it, some in Valyrian, others in far stranger tongues yet still.

“Move!” the voice in the shadows whispered angrily to her. She tried to rise to her feet but found herself too weak to do so. She slumped back down onto her front. ”Crawl!” the other voice cried. She obeyed, thought she knew not why, pulling herself forward onto the sigil. When at last she was fully ensconced within it did the voices fall silent.  “Here now Aerea Targaryen!” the voice of the masked woman echoed in her mind. “Bear witness to the truth. The binding of Dragons and man! The birth of Valyria”

Her vision turned black, and and her ears became deaf. She could not feel the ground below her, nor taste or smell the foul air on her tongue or in her nose. She was adrift in nowhere. Apart from the world, as it was in the world before her birth. Then she was returned to the world in fire.

* * *

Scorching tempest’s blazed hot in the chamber. The screeched and screams of Dragon and men alike wound together into some terrible malefic sound. New born babes wailed loudly, woman cried as they did during the pains of birth. Blood rinsed every surface, pouring away in great pools out the many exits to the chamber. Aerea witnessed horrors so terrible it threatened to fracture her mind apart with madness. Smoking and horrific half human babes lay writing in the sea of blood. Crooked unwebbed wings stuck from their backs, and thick pointed scales protruded awkwardly, slicing painfully into the parts that were human flesh.

Men and woman alike danced queer dances all around, chanting unknowable words that seemed to thrum under their own utterment. If not joined in dance, the rest were joined in other unions, in perverted acts of carnal sin. Dragons abound wove their way amongst the maelstrom, hissing and raging. Slaying some humans, but finding themselves unable to kill others. Something perverse was happening here, but Aerea was too petrified to even begin to understand what she was witnessing. Above he dragons danced their own strange patterns. The chanting grew louder, pounding upon the inside of her skull like a drum.

It was all too much. She closed her eyes and covered her ears, trying to hide herself from the frenzy of horrors assailing her.   “See now the truth Aerea Targayrian!” one of the shadow voices whispered to her. “The birth of Valyria and the union of men and dragon!” the other whispered to her.

“I don’t-” she wailed. “I can’t!”

“Here is where the blood of Valyria was forever bound inextricably from that of the dragons!” the masked womans voice boomed. “A bloodline now shared. A fate now bound together! A destiny woven together, both in glory as in doom!”  Aerea screamed in pain and anguish. She writhed as fear took her and convulsions once more wracked her body. They continued to escalate more and more, shaking her worse with each passing moment, until at last they took her completely. The world once more went black to her.

* * *

She winced her eyes open to find herself still lying upon the sigil. The room was again dark and the dragons and abominations alike were gone. The nightmares she had witnessed were receding in her memory quickly, her mind seemingly working hard to suppress them. She pulled herself up onto her arms and stared around. The masked woman was gone. 'Was she ever even here?' she asked herself 

A sharp pinching pain suddenly reached her from her legs. She gazed down and could not stop herself retching violently onto the floor at what she found. Tiny black worms were crawling up her legs, there pincer like feet digging sharply into her flesh. She lay there motionless, too stunned to move despite all her instincts screaming at her to do so. It was o nly when one of the wormed lifted its head to gaze at her, and she looked into its molten eyes did her senses return to her. 

She screamed and flung herself to her feet. She began violently trying to swat the ill begotten creatures off of her. But for every one she removed, another two she found latched elsewhere. She danced from foot to foot in a desperate attempt to rid herself of them, then she felt something squish below her foot.  Lifting her foot she found a tiny pool of what looked like molten rock beneath her, but a moment later she realised the truth of it. It had been another worm. She very suddenly became aware of the true nature of the room round her. Hundred of tiny black slithering worms were crawling towards her from every direction.

Her heart beat fast and she began to quiver again. Then she felt needle like teeth pierce her skin. Her reason returned to her in a flash, and in that same flash she sped off running from the dais. As she ran she felt squelch after squelch as her foot crushed worm after worm. The noise they made, the screeching sounds they produced when crushed under foot, she’d have welcomed death in place of hearing them. She did not know what door she had come through, but she no longer cared. She simply picked one and fled. As she did so she continued to swat the swarms of worms feasting upon her away. Some were as large as her hand, the largest as long as her arm sat hooked and clinging to her back. She screamed as she extracted them, there claws and teeth parting painfully from there nuzzling.

As they fell away from her she caressed her hands over herself to make sure she had missed none. She rubbed her hand over her thighs to check they were clear and her heart skipped a beat. There were lumps writhing beneath her flesh. The worms there had crawled there way inside her! The scream of terror that left her body at that knowledge was so intense, so loud, and so terrifying it was reached far throughout the ancient hallways, and was met with a response. The bellowing roar of Balerion shook the walls and thundered down the corridors. She latched onto it's sound like a drowning man might a piece of flotsam. She pivoted herself in the direction it had come from. Tears poured from her eyes as she stumbled back into the main chamber she had reached at the base of the winding staircase. She wept as she dashed and tripped her way up the stairs themselves. High above she could hear the furious roars of the ancient dragon responding to her plight.

* * *

 

When at last she stumbled back into the tower high above, she did not stop to catch her breath, but fled straight for the doorway and back out onto the ash choked plains. The ground beneath her shook as she ran herself as fast from the tower as she could. Abandoning both it and the hell that sat below it, fleeing as far as she could from the monster below. Balerion appeared before her, his monstrous form emerging out of the hazy smoke filled air.  He was stood on his legs, his back arched like some feral cat. A deep throaty growl was about him. It seemed like he was readying himself for battle. 

She ran to his side and scaled her way up to his back. Hardly had she taken her place upon it then did the ancient dragon take wing.  But scare had he in turn left the ground, then did the earth below erupt upwards, and a worm as large or larger yet perhaps then Balerion himself flew towards them.

It seized the dragon by his tail, wrapping it's deformed mouth around it and yanking Balerion hard back to earth. He roared his fury so loudly Aerea had no choice but to cover her ears. Balerion turned to face the worm, letting loose an inferno of scarlet flames upon it. It did nothing to deter the creature, as it seemed to swim through the fire and thrust itself forward to latch onto Balerion underside.  The old dragon screeched and batted furiously at the creature. He lowered his head and clamped his mighty jaws around the worms neck and squeezed. At the same time he lifted his wing and pulled them all upwards into the air. Thick, black, and oozing blood filled Balerion’s mouth as the worm screamed and squirmed in his mouth. The dragon continued to squeeze until at last it was silenced. But the monstrosity did not die easy. 

It had clamped down hard upon his torso, tearing away scales and rending flesh alike.  When at last it’s grip laxed in its death thralls, a might gash lay torn into  the dragons flesh. Balreion spat out the foul monstrosity, turned swiftly, and began winging his way west, away from the tower and away from Valyria.

* * *

Aerea felt a darkness once upon descending on her. Was she dying? She wasn’t sure. She could feel the worms crawling just beneath her skin, scalding in their nature they were searing her flesh wherever they moved. She could do nothing to remove them. She was powerless. She could not save herself. There was only place now that might offer her salvation. “King’s Landing!” she yelped to the ancient dragon. “Take us home!”

Whether he heard or not she did not know. Only that the sweet embrace of weariness was falling upon her. She needed to rest. She was so very tired. She slumped forward on the dragon back. She had no energy left within her. Such living nightmares as she had lived today had near killed her, was still killing her.  ‘All I need do is reach Westeros.” she thought to herself slowly and muddily. “Once I’m home...everything...will...be...fine…” she whispered to herself as she drifted off to sleep and back into the darkness one final time.


End file.
